


Fits of disorganized boredom, intense and vehement griping.

by Mizbingley



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Afemgers AU, F/M, Gen, Oh but they're just so cute, Pete encourages Toni to be a good friend and decent human, Rule 63, Rule 63 Avengers, Toni is petulant as ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizbingley/pseuds/Mizbingley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete encourages Toni to play a part in helping Stella understand the modern world, discussions of literature as well as glimpses into Pete and Toni's relationships ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fits of disorganized boredom, intense and vehement griping.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Benzaiten (DaughterOfTheWest)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfTheWest/gifts), [Suzelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzelle/gifts).



> This is sort of a companion piece to http://archiveofourown.org/works/482570/chapters/839682 which I've been doing sort of beta work with Suzelle on. Best read after chapter two.

 

“It’s not really your M.O., champ.”  
  
Toni lifted her face from the towel and arched an eyebrow at him.  
  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  
  
“You also have no idea what you’re doing. You missed your entire face.”  
  
Pete beckoned her over to his side of the bed, taking the towel from her hands and swiping at the spots of oil she had missed.  
  
“I’m really worried about the day you get some kind of toxic poisoning from this shit, is it possible for you to play with your toys without drinking half of the engine?” he muttered, palming the left side of her face and dabbing at all the creases on the opposite one.  
  
“As if worse shit hasn’t gotten in me,” she said with a smirk, pushing the towel he was offering her back into his hands and tilting her face so he could get the other side.  
  
“I’m still pissed about that, you know. No sane person hides palladium poisoning from their friends and personal assistants,” he grimaced, working carefully under her eye. “Also, why can’t you just use a mirror and clean this up yourself--”  
  
Pete’s hands stilled as Toni nuzzled her face back into the towel, reabsorbing half of the mess he just removed and shot him a heart twisting look before breaking away and heading to the bathroom, throwing her clothes casually behind her.  
  
“Because, precious,” she said, posing dramatically in the door frame, “then I would miss out on the bodice ripping experience of having you do it for me.”  
  
Pete grinned, reddening slightly at his ears the same way he had the first time he’d seen her naked. It had been his second day on the job. He had walked in confidently to meet Toni, who sat topless in a pair of stolen boxers skimming through her morning news bites. His only give had been the deep blush on the tips of his ears as he quietly picked up her gown, informed her that her guest from the night before had been shown out as he asked “Will there be anything else, Ms. Stark?” The fact that he still maintained a quiet sense of self-consciousness and modesty, even after all this time, was endearing.  
  
She strode into the shower Jarvis had already prepped and batted her eyelashes.  
  
“Oh and Pete?”  
  
“Hngh?” His eyes snapped back to meet her gaze. So stupidly male, it really was precious.  
  
“I was talking about the J.Crew model from ’08, not the palladium”, she cackled, giving Jarvis the signal to lock the bathroom door. Toni chuckled at the _whump_ of the towel hitting the door and had Jarvis put on some soothing heavy metal.

 

 

***************

 

The lights, save for her bedside lamp, were all out when Toni finally extracted herself from the shower. Earlier that night (or was it morning? When the world wasn’t in peril, the hours ran together), Pete had fished her out of the flood of oil she was simultaneously blaming on Dummy’s incompetence and Pete’s interruption, and dragged her upstairs, insisting that humans were generally diurnal. He was in the habit of doing shit like that, ever the PA, the guardian, the worrier, the lover.  
  
She crept over to her side of the bed, stealing one of his work shirts off of the floor. Pete frequently remarked that Toni might consider saving money by giving up her passion for expensive clothes, seeing that she stole everyone else’s anyway. He wasn’t exaggerating—Toni was a notorious clothes kleptomaniac. She had managed to gank assorted articles from most of the Avengers, they could be seen scattered around the room even in the dim light. There were more than a few of Stella’s old army shirts (“But they’re so vintage Barbie, you can spare a few”), at least two of Claire’s tanks, although she could have _sworn_ there were three in the beginning (“Barton, sweetie, what can I tell you, the S.H.I.E.L.D. issued ones breathe better”), one of Brooke’s lab coats (“Ahurhurhur look at me I’m a doc—ahaha come on Brookie don’t get like that I’m just messing with you”), and Torra’s cape, which Torra had dramatically bestowed upon Toni’s shoulders when she had invited the goddess to crash at her pad (“Ah, no really Pikachu, keep your vambraces, really I—goddamnit give me the cape then, if you insist”). Only Nikita had eluded her thieving little fingers so far, but she had a keen eye trained on his sunglasses, they were perfect and she needed them.  
  
The clock glowed 5:11 a.m. as she slipped lightly under the covers.  
  
Leaving the lamp on, she turned on her side to look at Pete’s outline lit by the artificial light and the small bits of sunrise slinking through the curtains. Pete wore _actual pajama sets_ to bed, with the pinstripes and the button down tops to boot, she still couldn’t believe it. He was such a string bean, just a patchwork of bones and skin, and a veritable font of bony butt jibes. His red hair glowed like soft copper, as though he were a trophy, her trophy, her medal of normalcy and proof of her own heart—greater proof than the prototype arc that he had gotten inscribed for her.  She was resisting the urge to run her fingers through it when—  
  
“Don’t do that intense staring thing, it freaks me out.”  
  
She started at the sound of his voice and froze, contemplating how to lie as gently as possible back down, feigning sleep. Pete turned and looked at her.  
  
“Shouldn’t you be asleep young man?” she said dismissively, flopping onto her back.  
  
“I could say the same for you. I dozed off while I was waiting for you to finish. Have the oceans been sufficiently drained for your purposes?” he said, propping himself up and brushing a wet strand off of her face.  
  
“Don’t you ever get tired of these things?” she said, slipping a hand under his shirt, “Would it kill you to wear something a little more easy access to bed?” He chuckled, and began buttoning up her… well, his shirt, hand pausing over the humming reactor. He sometimes did that, he enjoyed the warmth that the core gave off.  
  
“What can I say, I’m not that kind of girl,” he said, and gently removed her hand from his chest. Toni’s eyebrows shot up.  
  
“I’m sorry, was there another reason you sacrificed your precious beauty sleep for me,” she said incredulously.  
  
“I wanted to talk to you about something.”  
  
“I’m not giving Torra back that cape, it was a gift, fair and square.”  
  
“It’s not about that.”  
  
Toni froze, her eyebrows suddenly furrowed and she swallowed hard.  
  
“We’re not having… _that talk_ are we,” she said, plucking at the blankets, avoiding his gaze.  
  
“’ That talk’ Toni what are you—jesus christ NO you dingus, I’m not breaking up with you, holy shit,” he groused, rolling onto his back next to her and rubbing his eyes. “We have got to work on beating that psycho hero/relationship complex out of you, I have absolutely no intention of leaving you, ever, at any point within the foreseeable future.” Toni’s forehead relaxed and she grinned at him.  
  
“I like hearing you say it though.” Pete sighed and tucked an arm around her shoulder, nudging her in closer.  
  
“I was trying to talk to you about this before you went to go shower.”  
  
“What, that mysterious M.O. shit? What about it?”  
  
“It’s about Stella.”  
  
“ _Our_ Stella? Well, honey, we already talked to her about her behavior in school, I really think we might be out of options, if she can’t get her act together I guess we’ll have to ship her off to boarding schoo—“  
  
“Shut up for a second,” he groaned, clapping a hand over her mouth, which she proceeded to lick. “That’s disgusting and you’re an infant.”  
  
“Are you calling me your baby,” she purred, flipping on top of him and throwing off her borrowed shirt.  
  
“I’m calling you juvenile,” he said, throwing an arm over his eyes, blocking out a sight she knew most men would kill for. “You’re starting to make this into a bigger thing than it needs to be.”  
  
“I don’t even know what it is we’re talking about, that’s far too many undefined variables for even me to work around and enlarge,” she said, grinning.  
  
“Are you really not going to help Stella with her cultural readjustment project?” he said seriously, settling his hands on her legs. Toni looked at him, dumbfounded.  
  
“Is that seriously what this is about?”  
  
“Yea, it seriously is,” he said, shifting her back so he could sit up and look at her on the same level. “You showed me the pictures Jarvis snapped of her reading Twilight, it’s pretty obvious she doesn’t have a fair pulse on the modern world.”  
  
“I don’t know about that,” she snorted, slumping against him. “It is one of the more popular books out there, I’d say that’s a pretty accurate measurement, even if it is unfortunate. Think of the money I could get for those shots, magazines love that slice of life drivel, and the closet straw feminists would lose their minds.”  
  
“You really aren’t going to help then?” he said, tracing lazy circles into her back. “Like I said, it just doesn’t seem like your M.O.” She raised her head from his shoulder and gave him a bemused look. “I mean, not the pictures, just… that you wouldn’t rise to the challenge, especially to help a friend.”  
  
“Are you insinuating that I don’t care about her?”  
  
“Don’t be an idiot, you know that I know that’s not true. But come on Toni, you’re probably the most well-adjusted person on this team.” Her lips twisted even further and her eyebrows threatened to disappear into her hairline. “Culturally, I mean. Think about it champ, there’s the frozen woman wonder and the Norse goddess, and a game of fucking spy versus spy going on in the ventilation system. They spend their free time hunting each other when they’re not at their day job of hunting other people. I feel like that doesn’t leave a lot of room for movie time.”  
  
“You forgot Brooke,” she said with the slightest hint of annoyance.  
  
“I didn’t forget Brooke, but I’m going to throw you out of our bed if you try to convince me that the good doctor, who has been hiding out in Calcutta for god knows how long, is on the up and up of current American culture like you are.” Toni sighed heavily and rolled away from Pete, starting to feel the exhaustion seep into her.  
  
“Do I have to?”  
  
“Antonia Edith Stark, there is not a single thing on earth that you have to do or that I can make you do,” he said, laying down and gathering her to his chest. “But I’ll say it one last time, it just doesn’t seem like you to roll your eyes at a challenge like this. Stella is like… like a vintage car begging to be revamped,” he said sleepily, his breath ghosting against her neck. Toni grimaced the best she could, still feeling the corners of her mouth tugging upwards. When he put it like that, it was hard to say no.

 

 

 

***************

  
“I mean how the fuck do you parse almost a century of literature into a top twenty list,” Toni said, frowning at the library of Stark Tower. Pete swayed unevenly on the old library ladder he had insisted putting in the room. Toni latched onto it to steady the antique, mentally noting she’d have to do something about subtly reinforcing it without upsetting the original design. Skinnybones was one thing, but she worried about someone like Stella or Torra trying to scale the rickety piece of crap.  
  
“Couldn’t tell you, Khaleesi, but the New York Times and their ilk seem to do a decent job of it semi-annually,” he said, climbing down with a few more volumes. “So do intro to writing college professors. I think if we start out with this pile, we can come up with a good little collection for Miss America.” He walked over to the table and dropped the additional books on top of the small hill of novels that had been growing steadily over the past hour.  Toni pursed her lips and stretched out on the couch.  
  
“But the problem with those lists is that they exist for the everywoman who hasn’t been a popsicle for the past seventy years. I don’t know Pete, this seems a little more complicated than your average book club,” she said, watching as he picked up a hardcover and opened to a favorite passage. Pete had just… the right word for it was lovely. He had really lovely hands, elegant long fingers that might be better suited to a pianist rather than a PA. She slumped quietly on the couch, watching the way he handled books almost tenderly, flicked his wrists as he turned the pages, cradled the binding reverently in one palm. She felt her mouth slacken a little, lost in thought. Pete had studied literature as an undergrad student, and had more of a genuine love for books than anyone she had met. She didn’t particularly disdain fiction, but she also never had much time for it. There had been machines that needed building, models that needed fucking, an empire to be run and maintained. _War and Peace_ had mysteriously slipped under her radar.  
  
“Book recommendation is an imperfect science,” he said, putting down the one he was flipping through. “How many should we give her?” Toni shut her mouth again, the pretty display of fingers over for the time being.  
  
“Not sure. Oh my god,” she choked, reaching to grab one of the thinner novels. “Is this a joke? Oh you precious thing, I don’t know if I’m even mean enough to sneak this one in,” she said, flipping through the pages of _Lolita_. Pete shrugged.  
  
“It’s a good book,” he said, and then, catching the look on her face, “I mean, it’s an intensely weird premise, and Nabokov was basically attempting to troll the American bourgeoisie, but the actual writing is very beautiful, even though what it’s communicating… isn’t.”  
  
“Remind me to completely nix pigtails from here on ou—“  
  
“ _Lolita_ is what the academic community might term a provocative but essentially problematic novella, alright?” he huffed, pushing the books to the side in order to make room for two piles. “You might have a point though, this could give her a heart attack. Reject.”  
  
“Not so fast darlin’, “ she grabbed the book out of his hands and put it arbitrarily in a “keep” space. “I think some literary heart palpitations would do Barbie good, get the ice out of her veins,” she said with a smirk.  
  
“You monster,” he said, leaning in to peck at her cheek.  
  
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Much to her dismay, Pete pulled back after just one kiss and smiled as warmly at Brooke as icily as Toni was scowling.  
  
“Not at all, need something in here?” Brooke twisted her mouth into her usual close-lipped grin, somehow self-deprecating when she wasn’t even speaking.  
  
“Not exactly a what, more like a who. I wanted to look over some numbers with the mad scientist, mind if I steal her for a second?” Toni sighed and made room on the couch for the only woman who she could condone getting cockblocked by.  
  
“Alright big green, lay it on me.” Brooke relinquished a tablet that Toni began skimming through, brow furrowed deep in thought. This was the kind of exact science that book lending just didn’t offer. “You were right after all, I think we were playing a little too hard and fast with that one va—are you listening to me?” Brooke had gotten off the couch and was shifting through the pile of potential books while Pete scaled that goddamn ladder again.  
  
“What is all this? Wow that is a really quality copy of the Ring trilogy, did you get this custom made or something?” she said with the smallest hint of awe, turning the giant book over in her hands.  
  
“Or something. You want it? You can have it when Barbie’s done with it, it’s yours, let’s get back to the num—“  
  
“Barbie? Why does Stella want a Tolkien anthology, has,” Brooke’s voice dipped conspiratorially, “has she been compromised and brought to the dark side? Of the nerds? Is she going to start crashing our science jams?” Toni snorted and flicked through another page of numbers.  
  
“God forbid. She’d be like a bull in a china shop. The only worse lab partner would be Torra—“  
  
“I’m not so sure about that Toni...“  
  
“Please, even the Hulk would have some reverence for the beauty of science and engineering.”  
  
“The Hulk tore apart the Helicarrier, T,” she said pointedly.  
  
“The Helicarrier is overrated, B,” Toni shot back. “It’s like, I don't know, the Mona Lisa of air crafts, people are bowled over by the initial idea of it, but no one’s _really_ invested in it. Everyone would eventually move on if either were destroyed for good. Except maybe Fury,” she chuckled. “Anyway, haven’t you heard? The shrink wants Rogers to get reacquainted with the modern world, see the sights, maybe do us all a favor and get a cute piece of ass to do his patriotic duty and pull that stick out of hers,” she said lightly, putting down the tablet. “I’m doing my part for the war effort and finding some good books for Aunt Samantha to read.” Brooke picked up the copy of _Lolita_ and cocked an eyebrow.  
  
“By giving her _Lolita_?”  
  
“It’s what the academic community might term a provocative but essentially problematic novella, okay?” she said petulantly, hugging the copy to her chest. There was no way Brooke was going to crash her Stella-shocking party. Toni heard Pete snort up on the ladder.  
  
“Well, far be it from me to question Pete’s taste in postwar literature,” Brooke chuckled.  
  
“Excuse me, but why must you assume Mr. Potts picked out this fine piece of writing, I’ll have you know I am quite a fan of,” she paused, and glanced down at the cover for the author’s name, only to find it was on the spine, “Fuck you Banner.”  
  
“Toni, I don’t even assume you pick out your own clothes most days. Can anyone contribute to the lending library?”  
  
“I don’t see why not,” Pete interjected, balancing the Harry Potter series as he climbed down. “That would probably be a boon to our poor, overworked overlord and landlady,” he said, depositing the books and rubbing a hand on Toni’s neck, her favorite spot. “Less time wasted on books, more time spent on splashing around in a pool of oil, or building me a robotic mistress to have dinner with while she saves the world.”  
  
“Or finding a less whiny CEO for my company,” she said testily.  
  
“Ouch,” Brooke grinned. “In that case, I think I have something in mind. Toni, look over those numbers and let me know where you want to go from there. I have some ideas we can discuss when you get back to the lab.”  
  
“Will do.” Brooke breezed out of the room and Toni turned to Pete, pouting. “You don’t really want a robotic mistress do you, precious? Are you that jealous of my oil spills?”  
  
“I don’t know Toni, a robotic mistress probably eats and sleeps more regularly than you do, don’t tempt me,” he said, leaning her back into the couch.  
  
“Mr. Potts, I thought we were working on something of significant cultural importance,” she sighed as he ran his fingers through her hair.  
  
“Lolita and Harry Potter is a good start,” he said uncertainly while Toni let her hands drift, and his breath hitched. “But fuck it, I’m sure Banner can pick up the slack.” She grinned into his shoulder. She enjoyed a challenge, but she enjoyed winning even more.

**Author's Note:**

> Kisses to Suz and Cap for being encouraging as ever, kudos to YOU dear reader for following us all down the rabbit hole of this mad, genderbent world. Everything Pete has to say about Lolita is essentially mined from my own mind, so have fun with that. The title is a questionably appropriate quote from Lolita, Part Two, Chapter 1.


End file.
